Chef Chai Chaowasaree has signed the lease for a new restaurant on the ground floor of the 46-story Pacifica Honolulu residential tower at 1009 Kapiolani Blvd.

Chef Chai at Pacifica will likely open in January with seating for fewer than 100 people including the bar. That’s less that half the size of the well-known Chai’s Island Bistro at Aloha Tower Marketplace, which seats 240.

"It’s hard to fill that kind of restaurant every day," said Chaowasaree, who said he signed a 10-year lease at Pacifica with a five-year option.

Chef Chai at Pacifica will also have a different menu focus from the Island Bistro.

"More contemporary, not really island cuisine," he said. Also, not Thai, such as at his Singha Thai Cuisine in Waikiki.

"It will be more intimate and the food will be different, focused on the health-conscious," Chai said.

The words "health-conscious" can be dangerous, because they express something different to just about everybody.

"Healthy doesn’t mean vegan or vegetarian," he said, though he will offer vegan and vegetarian choices.

One absolute certainty?

"There will be no butter in my kitchen," he declared. "There are different ways to create a dish, using a reduction of stock …or herbs," so flavorful nobody will be left wanting for butter.

Lest omnivores get too nervous, the menu will include meat, including center-cut filet mignon, Colorado lamb and chicken "breast, no thighs, and always boneless-skinless," Chaowasaree said.

For the Chai-faithful, items from "our signature menu that we cannot change" will be on the new restaurant’s menu, where the health focus will be more education-based.

For instance, eating fish is healthy, but as ahi is a large fish, there are concerns about its mercury content. However, much-smaller salmon are high in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, he said.

People with gout who are told to eat more vegetables need to know to avoid bamboo shoots and asparagus, he said.

"One misconception is that coconut milk is bad because it has high cholesterol, but it’s good cholesterol," he said.

Chaowasaree is executive chef for Hawaiian Airlines and during his ramp-up for the gig he learned that people lose 30 percent of their sense of taste at 30,000 feet, he said. That means airline food’s flavors need to be ratcheted up, not just with salt or sugar, "but a lot of herbs and spice … more aromatic, to overcome the palate loss."

He still is developing the menu for his new restaurant but described some planned items, including an appetizer called an apple-kimchee summer roll with grilled, spicy ko chu jang shrimp.

Summer rolls are not fried and "pickled vegetables are very good for you — they help you digest food, almost like yogurt."

An abalone dish also will be among the appetizers. Another dish will feature Mrs. Cheng’s soft tofu with coconut-ginger broth served with broccolini and topped with chopped walnuts "because walnuts are good for your memory," Chaowasaree said.

The menu will point out which dish is good for lowering blood pressure while another might be good for weight loss, he said.

Chaowasaree has yet to fully cost-out menu items, but appetizer prices will range from single-digit to double-digit. As for entrees, "most items will be less than $25 except for the lamb and filet mignon," he said.

Chef Chai’s at Pacifica will offer a private dining room with seating for 25, he said.

Chai’s Island Bistro offers live music during dinner, but that won’t be possible in the new place. Any live music would have to be later, he said, say, after 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, back at Aloha Tower Marketplace, Chai’s Island Bistro is on a month-to-month lease after serving customers for 15 years. "We plan to stay at this point," Chaowasaree said, explaining that he is eagerly anticipating a planned renovation of the complex that he hopes will freshen up the whole scene.

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On the Net:

» chefchai.com Opens in a new tab

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.